When you launch a freelance writing business, you need to find people who want you to write for them and will pay you to do so. Once you have found good clients, you need to keep them, or at least ensure that after some time you are able to replace them with new clients. Every freelancer needs regular work.
Finding new clients can be a minefield, not only in terms of identifying suitable people or companies, but also in terms of the time and effort it takes.
Keeping the client is another story, and it is not always linked to work ethics or excellence. I’ve worked for several individuals who have been delighted with my writing and expressed a willingness to continue on a long term basis. Then their priorities suddenly change, or they find someone else to do the job, sometimes at a cheaper rate.
There’s an interesting story that was posted recently on Entrepreneur.com which discusses the syndrome of a “black hole” that comes from nowhere and seems to literally swallow prospects. Whether you call it a black hole or simply failure to close the deal, it is intensely disappointing when you have struck a positive note with a potential client who then doesn’t turn into a real, paying client.
It is often even more disheartening when an existing client disappears into this “black hole” and a previously profitable win-win relationship dies.
There are various reasons for a sudden lack of interest or failure to conclude an agreement. These range from the client being overwhelmed with other more pressing work (that brochure simply isn’t important any more) to a genuine decision that you are not the right person to write for them.
But there is also action that you can take to be pro-active and persuade both potential and existing clients that they need you. This takes confidence and the ability to take action.
A true entrepreneur is persistent, committed and positive, even when the chips are down. So if you feel as if you’ve lost a client to the big black hole the article describes, you need to be sure you don’t fall into it too.
Angela Says: Your Writing as An Entrepreneurial Business
Finding clients and keeping them is a challenge. Not only at the start of your freelance writing career, but long after you’re established, when you have plenty of projects, and then suddenly projects are thin on the ground.
There’s a lot involved in transitioning from looking at freelance writing firstly as a hobby which brings in some extra cash, then as a career, and then finally as an entrepreneurial business.
What do we mean by “entrepreneurial business”?
An entrepreneur is someone who’s comfortable with risk. Most freelancers are not. If you’re truly risk-averse, you’re unsuited to the freelance life… you need a job. Paradoxically, the more comfortable you become with risk (with the potential for failure), the more SECURITY you have.
For example, those freelance writers who are Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) members, are completely unaware of any economic downturn. It doesn’t affect them: they know how to make money, and they make money, whatever the economic situation happens to be.
A business is an entity which operates, whether the owner is there or not. So you could be sunning yourself in Tahiti, or swanning along a Parisian boulevard, while your business keeps humming along without you.
So considering your freelance writing career an “entrepreneurial business”, means that you’re comfortable with risk, and that your goal is to build a real business, which operates whether you’re there or not.
As I discussed in this week’s Ezine, in “From 2006 to Now”, the world of freelance writing has changed considerably since 2006, when this blog launched.
In the coming months, we’ll look closely at opportunities for freelance writers, and you’ll discover more on methods to transition from freelance writing as a career, to freelance writing as a real business.
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